Guilt, that feeling that torments our consciences and dirties our hearts. Guilt can be a double-edged sword: you can destroy another person or destroy yourself, it is used as a shield, and on other occasions also to reject attacks or judgments, guilt is a very negative emotion, as well as being very versatile.
The mechanism of guilt
The guilt felt for our own person is a self-destructive mechanism , we feel guilt for things we have done or not done, we feel remorse and generally we punish ourselves seeking to repair the guilt through pain. The funny thing about guilt is that it is driven by a feeling of love, really guilt is manipulation out of love , mothers tend to instill in children ideas such as “if you do that, I’m going to feel very sad”, which generates in the child the idea of guilt and betrayal, but this does not arise if there was no love in the bond. Self-love, love of our values, love for others.
Why do we feel or make ourselves feel guilt?
We feel guilty when our action or omission has broken or violated your own value scheme, this is a self-betrayal, during our lives we all make mistakes, to a greater or lesser degree, and this makes us feel bad, but looking back all the time to recriminate us supposes an inadequate use of energy (which is not unlimited) and does not give us anything positive to solve the situation. Guilt leaves us trapped in a state of helplessness that eventually becomes circular and eternal.
With the passage of time and the burden of guilt, our desire to continue is running out; We feel tired and we will not be able to find our way back to a full life, and we will begin to experience physical discomfort: tight breathing, and a great weight on our shoulders. In the foundations of the feeling of guilt, a multitude of different ways of relating to the self are intertwined, but due primarily to the manifestations of low self-esteem, guilt becomes the whip of punishment .
How Guilty People Act
People who suffer the consequences of guilt generally have rigid thinking, that means that it is not possible for them to see and create nuances in situations, so their judgments will be very strict.
These people have in common a rigid and polarized thinking, that is, they appreciate the world in black and white: things are either good or bad, or good or bad. They do not know how to appreciate the infinity of shades that exist between these two colors, because their way of thinking is too strict and stereotyped . Therefore, they are practically incapable of analyzing the positive and negative aspects of a situation, since they tend to move the balance in only one direction.
How does guilt manifest itself?
As we already mentioned, guilt has many manifestations, depending on where the relationship goes:
- The big culprits : They are those who feel guilty for everything that happens, even if they have no responsibility for what happened.
- Evaders : they are those who use guilt as a sword, they are experts in blaming the other people involved to save their share of responsibility in the matter, they are usually manipulative and very cunning.
- Mediators , those individuals, despite trying to mediate, make use of guilt, these are the ones who place the blame where there are no other people, and outside of human control, their personality is half mystical and they tend to believe in luck. .
None of the previously expressed guilt relationships is of course better than others, they are difficult and harmful, and in no case is responsibility used, so we will be increasingly far from manifesting control over situations and taking control of our life.
We all act in a wrong way at certain times because no one is infallible or absolutely good or bad, there will be moments that happen and we obtain undesirable results in our behaviors, whether driven by emotions or circumstances, the important thing is not the origin of the error, it is the way to face it which will make this negative experience turn into a positive one and that we can learn and improve our personality.
This is where we enter with the term of responsibility, being responsible for your actions is not the same as being guilty of your actions , being responsible for them gives you back the leading role as an active human being in the construction of yourself, by being responsible you and everyone who knows the situation, will be waiting for an action of amendment and not a punishment as guilt does. Responsibility for the error produces introspection and action tending to change and modification seeking non-repetition of the action, instead guilt makes you a victim of the action and its consequences .
How to be responsible for our actions:
- Leave rigid and polarized thinking behind. It assumes that there is flexibility in everything and that the flexibility is better to withstand the changes of the winds. Play with your ideas and feelings, think about the positive and the negative of everything you find around you; this will be like thinking gymnastics for you.
- Analyze what happened, develop an internal dialogue , find your faults, rehearse new response patterns, delve, investigate, it is necessary to know what happened, where the fault was in order to change or control it. By finding the patterns, you will discover what is your share of responsibility and what is the share of the others involved .
- Take action, if there is responsibility in your actions there must always be an action to amend it, plan action strategies, we must never stay in sadness and helplessness of guilt.
- Do not stay there! Nobody is perfect, take action on the matter, transform your guilt into responsibility .